Security products, project & service business incl. financing, being a local subsidiary of a globally active technology group.

Role / Function :

Turnaround Manager and Coach of the local management team.

Business Context :

The company was acquired 1½ years before, and with integration the originally high profitability started to deteriorate step-by-step such that the company started to lose money.

A first turnaround attempt did not deliver the necessary results and the situation even worsened.

In parallel, the moral deteriorated and highly respected key members of the management considered to leave.

Actions :

A comprehensive turnaround program was designed and implemented. It firstly increased the financial transparency, which enabled the definition of measures to improve the quality of the order intake, and at the same time to minimize the reduction in terms of cost-structure to fit the revenue budget.

In parallel, adapted the integration to utilize the local strengths and limited it to the necessary elements, such that it overall supported the business, as well as aligning the strategic direction to be in line with the overall group strategy, and at the same time optimized the business mix to improve the margin.

But most important was to facilitate the required change in terms of corporate culture.

Outcome :

After a few months, break-even was achieved and within a year, profitability was again at 'benchmark level'.

Motivation was high again and even the key members of management, who were 'at risk' before, stayed with the company.